


Three is a Pattern

by speckynerdyfucknut



Category: Barry (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M, Other, everyone is sad, it's a OFC but it's a self insert for me not gonna lie, no one is well adjusted, past emotionally abusive relationship, slow burn doesn't even begin to describe it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-18
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2020-12-23 15:08:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21083171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speckynerdyfucknut/pseuds/speckynerdyfucknut
Summary: She's moved to LA to become a writer. It's going terribly, and not just because she's sad and tired all the time. There's a guy she can't get rid of, but he might be the key to inspiration.





	1. chapter one

**Author's Note:**

  * For [my sad ass](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=my+sad+ass).

> This is for me but you can read it if you want. If you like it please let me know.

It turns out when you move from Cleveland to Los Angeles very little changes. In Esther’s experience, at least. One day you’re juggling trying to write a thesis and shitty part-time jobs, and another you’re juggling trying to write a novel and shitty part-time jobs. There are some differences, she told herself, rubbing her eyes, tired from staring at a screen, tired from a half-shift at a half decent coffee shop. Tired from the ever changing, never changing routine of mundane life and disappointment. She can’t think of any right now.

“Refill?”, asks the waitress, holding a coffee jug in one hand and some papers in the other. Esther nods. They’re at a diner, a random place Esther’s never been to before and probably will never revisit. The wi-fi barely works, the food is average and the coffee is terrible. The outlets work so at least she could plug in her laptop and pretend to write. 

Instead of doing that she lets her thoughts spiral. It’s all the classics. Why would she move to LA to write if she’s writing a novel. She could do that anywhere. Somewhere where the rent is cheaper. Somewhere where there is public transport so she doesn’t have to spend two hours a day on a bike. Somewhere where it’s not ninety hundred degrees every day. Somewhere where not every single person is completely self-centred. Somewhere she would not be completely self-centred. Somewhere where she wouldn’t feel so tired every day, so apathetic, so heavy. Somewhere where she would get inspired, where the words would flow out of her mind and they would all be the right words in the right order. She could live somewhere like that. Maybe Portland. She could be happy and successful in Portland. Or Rochester. Even Richmond. Then again, that’s what she thought in Cleveland about LA. The screen has gone black. The face in it looks neutral. The neutral face of someone who spends a lot of time keeping their face neutral. Suddenly there is a series of dry cracks coming from somewhere not too far. They sound like gun shots, but Esther thinks they’re probably fireworks. Probably someone having some fun around here for once.

After a couple of minutes of Esther trying to remember the last time she had fun she hears sirens approaching, so maybe they were gun shots after all. At the same time someone comes in. Esther lifts her head automatically and makes brief eye-contact with the new customer before he sits down in the booth next to hers. She blinks and returns her eyes to the screen, face unchanged, but she’s surprised. She knows him.

Well that’s not exactly true, she thinks, not listening to the conversation he’s having with the waitress. She doesn’t. But she knows his face. It’s the face of a regular at a Chinese place where she used to work in Cleveland. He would pick up an order for one around once a week. She last saw him a couple of months ago, just before she moved, and now he’s here. Esther thinks that someone with a more active imagination would probably read into a coincidence like this. She wonders, taking a sip of her coffee, if she would be a better writer if she were more deluded. The coffee is disgusting, but could be made drinkable with some sugar. There is none at her booth. But there is some at the next one. She sighs, steeling herself for an interaction.

“Um, excuse me?”, she starts in her polite voice. The man turns, smiling. Weird, who smiles? “Could you pass me the sugar?”

“Yeah”, he turns to get it and then back, sugar dispenser in an outstretched hand, still smiling. “There you go.” Barry, the name appears in Esther’s head. That was the name he always gave for his order.

“Thank you”, she smiles back, with some effort, and tips some sugar in her mug.

“Do I know you?”, he asks “You look familiar. Are you an actor too?” He has a pleasant, open look about him that Esther doesn’t remember ever seeing on him before. Maybe if she were in a better mood she would engage in a conversation with him, explain the wild coincidence of them meeting again at the other end of the country. Maybe it she were less tired.

“I don’t think so, I’m not an actor.”

“Oh.” He doesn’t turn away, but at least stops smiling.

“Anyway, thanks for the sugar.” Finally he turns back and Esther can return to her laptop. To her novel. That she is writing. She glances at the back of Barry’s head. Did he say that he was an actor? He never seemed particularly… but then what does an actor look like, she thinks. Usually he looked more like her, at least a little tired and the opposite of chipper. Maybe he moved here to follow a dream and it worked out. He thought he could be happy and successful in LA and that’s exactly what happened. Esther sighs. Back to the spiral it is.


	2. chapter two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You can find some great conversation in a bush.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen I fucked up my timeline a little and had to move chapters around. Turns out I don't remember the order in which things happened in the show as well as I thought. It's fine thought, it changes nothing.
> 
> I didn't edit this as much as I would have liked. Sorry.

There is Barry again, for no reason at all. Normally Esther wouldn’t have noticed him at all, would have just passed him on her bike, but he’s hard to miss. And now she’s hiding behind a car and watching whatever it is he’s doing.

First, and most crazy of all, he’s wearing like three layers of black clothes. Outside. In LA. Second, what he seems to be packing into his car is a sniper rifle. Most likely a prop, since he said he was an actor, but that shit still looks scary. Third, he’s flailing. Clearly annoyed. At no one in particular, there isn’t a soul in sight. Just angrily shoving fake firearms into a sedan. At one point he pauses and yells out “Fuck!” To Esther this unabashed choleric display is a marvel. Nothing self-conscious about it. Barry angry, Barry yell. Esther can’t help but feel jealous. 

She used to be like that, used to get unreasonably annoyed at small things or lose it completely when faced with a minor inconvenience on a bad day. Used to yell at her parents when they asked the wrong question, snap at well-meaning friends. She was never proud of it, but now she misses it. Would give anything to be able to honestly express emotion like this.

It took Barbara three years of passive aggressive comments to get Esther to stop exploding when she was having a bad day and was getting berated over something trivial. To teach her to take deep breaths, never let her anger be known and used against her.

It took Luke under a year to teach her to never show it, no matter what the reason. That any expression of anger was either self-indulgence, putting on a show, or trying to hurt him. She learned to guide all aggression inward, never outward. To blame herself for feeling.

It took retail to start viewing her stunted emotions as an asset. Customers could never get to her, no matter what the assholes tried. Esther was a blank, beige wall of corporate policy. She would get praised for it and for a while it made her proud. 

When Esther comes out of her thoughts, Barry’s long gone. He slammed the trunk, slammed the door, and peeled out accompanied by the screech of tires. Never once looked to see if someone was watching him the entire time. Esther thinks that’s probably for the best. She would have looked like a god damn stalker. But now there’s no chance in hell of them ever meeting again. Esther will never have to confront how much of herself she always saw in him, and how frustrating it is seeing him change whilst she stays the same.

***

If parties were the circles of hell, a house party where you don’t know anybody and also everyone is an aspiring actor has got to be like, at least the fourth one. Technically Esther does know someone here, the person responsible for her suffering, Sasha. They know each other from work, where Esther serves as an audience of one, and at some point Sasha decided that they were friends. She called Esther up earlier that day and presented her with a networking opportunity of a lifetime. She also wouldn’t shut up so finally Esther caved, somehow thinking that going to a party would cost her less energy than continuing the conversation. Now that it’s become apparent no one at this party has any experience with writing, knows anyone who does, or is capable of a conversation that is not about acting, she’s hidden herself in the garden, listening to the party through an open window. 

“I’ve just always been drawn to performing, you know, even as a child I used to put up these plays for my parents. But they never seemed to really get them, so that’s why, I think, I felt that I needed to cast like, a wider net with my art.” Someone inside is getting deep.

Maybe she could just… walk home. She sure as shit can’t afford anything other than that. The doors open and someone walks out into the garden. Paces nervously, not noticing Esther for a good minute. When he finally turns and faces her, and the light from the house hits him, she chokes on her beer. Because it’s fucking Barry.

“Ah! Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”He jumps slightly at the sudden appearance of a person dying, and immediately approaches Esther as she tries desperately to expel the beer from her lungs. Not knowing how to help, he just hovers one hand over her hunched back for a while. “Are you okay? Do you need water? I can get you some water or something…”, she waves her hand, trying to communicate that she’s fine.

“It’s okay, I’m fine”, she manages finally, “just…”, she has no idea how to make this sentence end with her looking normal. She hopes he won’t recognise her. “I’m fine.”

“Hey.” Well, fuck. “You were in that diner, right? Two days ago?” He looks relieved that she’s stopped coughing. She’s petrified that he’s found her basically hiding in a bush next to the house he was in. Would telling him that she’s not a stalker make things better or worse.

“Yeah.” Esther decides to incriminate herself as little as possible. Barry looks to the house nervously, thinks for a couple of seconds, looks back at her.

“Can I, um, stay out here for a little bit? It’s kind of awkward for me inside right now.” She can’t really say no, can she. And it’s not like it’s going to be worse than sitting here and listening to the conversations going on inside.

“Sure.” Esther makes room on the small bench. Reaches under it and gets a beer from a six-pack she stole from the kitchen. Barry accepts it without a word. They drink in silence for a while.

“I figured out why you looked familiar.” He says, looking at her intently. Shit. “You used to work at this, uh, Chinese place in Cleveland, right? I used to eat there sometimes.” 

Now that all of Esther’s fears regarding this conversation have come true she finds herself relaxing. Nothing she can do now to salvage this man’s opinion of her. Might as well tell the truth.

“I know”, she says. “I was just trying to… work…“ She always calls writing work it always sounds like a lie. It’s not work if no one is paying for it. It’s just stupid. “And didn’t really want to talk.”

“Oh. Is now though… Should I… Do you want me to go?” Something in his voice makes Esther finally look him in the face. She can’t tell if he looks sad, or panicked, or confused, but there’s definitely something wrong and suddenly she has the urge to help.

“Nah, stay”, she smiles. “More fun hiding together.” Barry smiles back for a second. She felt the urge to help but now she has no idea how to even start. So it’s just silence between them. He said it was awkward for him inside but really, how much worse can it be that sitting out here with her. Looking at Barry, Esther realises how silly it was to envy this man. Because there he is. The same vaguely sad, oafish person she remembers from the Chinese place. Moving didn’t change him any more than it did her. 

“How do you know Natalie?” He asks after a couple of minutes.

“Who?” It’s probably not the best answer Esther could have given, but she’s too tired to try to appear like she belongs at this party.

“This is her house?” Yeah, that makes sense.

“Oh. I don’t really know anyone here. I came with Sasha? We work together.”

“You work together… at a coffee place? You’re a barista?” 

“Yep.” 

“So what work were you doing in that diner?” He just had to see the inconsistencies in her story. It’s as if he’s actually listening to what she says. New to LA all right.

“I was writing. Trying to. I’m trying to be a writer, I moved here to…” She waves her hand in lieu of explanation. Esther always feels a sort of shame admitting to having a dream, like it’s childish. “It’s not going so great.”

“Why?” He asks. And what a question that is. Where to start. Esther just laughs and shakes her head.

“I’m shit. I don’t even have anything to not be able to sell.”

“You just moved here a couple of months ago, right? You’re doing great, you moved to LA and became a writer.” Esther shakes her head again. She didn’t become anything. “Just because you haven’t had your break yet doesn’t mean that…”

“I didn’t. Am not. A writer.” She interrupts. “You can’t just move and become who you want to be. I tried that already when I moved to Cleveland. All of my shit just followed me there. And now it’s here. Fucking me over.” Barry looks at his hands clutching his beer, face tense. Esther thinks she should change the subject to something less depressing, but she’s out of fucks for the night. “I mean didn’t your shit follow you? Or are you now just shiny and clean, nothing weighing you down, ready to reach for the stars?”

“No. No, it followed me.” He says after a while, voice small. Christ, she’s can be a real fucking downer. Breaking the psyches of men at house parties. They stay quiet for a while. She tries to think of something, anything to say. There’s nothing. 

The sound of a ringtone cuts through the silence. It’s Barry’s phone. He clears his throat before answering. She can hear the person on the line saying that they’re here. Esther doesn’t feel relief to be rid of Barry. This has been the least fake conversation she’s had for months, even if it was awkward and sad. He gets up.

“Um, my friend and his buddies are here, I gotta go.” He doesn’t move . “How do I get rid of it? I don’t want any of that old shit anymore, I just want this.” He looks at the house, the light from it illuminating his face. Looks back down at Esther, eyes wide and open and lost. She wishes she were able to help, but shakes her head.

“Fuck if I know, man. I guess you just have to work at it.” She gives Barry this clichéd, weak-ass advice with a lopsided smile. “I’ll see you around.” She says, fully aware of how unlikely that is. 

“Yeah. Uh, have a good night.” He gives her half a wave and finally goes inside. She looks at the house for a couple of seconds and then takes out her phone, having decided to go home. She’s going to try and take her own shitty advice.


	3. chapter three

“Next!”, yells the man behind the desk. Esther approaches, certain there must be a better way to handle this. “What can I help you with?, at least he seems as eager to interact with her as she is.

“I lost my wallet. I think I need to report it?” She knows it, but it’s always polite to act ignorant. She gets a form to fill out and is send away. It only take about two minutes but she has to wait in line again to hand it over.

She stares at the wall full of pictures of wanted men and women, some with mug shots, some with security camera pictures, some with only a sketch. Esther thinks about the people in the pictures. Most of them would look absolutely normal given different circumstances. The woman with a black eye and a swollen lip, the flash of the camera accentuating the bags under her eyes and washing out her skin. If she walked into Esther’s coffee shop she wouldn’t pay her any mind. Wouldn’t even recognise her. Out of the context of the police station, of the criminality assigned to them anyone can pass as an upstanding citizen.

There is one picture that stands out. Not only because it’s carelessly pinned on top of the neat rows of other ones, but because of how bad it is. The photo is the shittiest, grainiest suggestion of a man, you couldn’t even tell if he’s facing towards you or away. Esther wonders what the Big Foot’s done now to have the cops after him. Esther scoffs at herself, because the man with no face looks familiar. She turns away from the wall and stops herself from wondering who it reminds her of. It’s probably like a Rorschach test, you see whom you want to see. There are some people she really doesn’t want to see.

That’s a really fucking dumb shit to do, she feels a sudden onslaught of furious thoughts. To lose a wallet like a fucking airhead. Like she didn’t have to work for the money that was in it. Like she wouldn’t have to pay to replace the wallet, the ID, the credit card. How many hours will she have to work and how many more to waste just to fix one dumb-shit mistake. She wishes she could bang her head against the wall, maybe shake some fucking brain cells loose. Maybe her eyes wouldn’t sting with self pity. She really likes to pity herself, doesn’t she.

The fact that her turn comes and she can hand in the form and go home for a bit before work shakes Esther out of her anger. As she exits the station and tries to take deep, calming breaths, it hits her who the picture looks like. She smiles weakly at her brain’s feeble attempt at humour. It’s like if Slenderman went to the gym.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is tiny and there's no Barry in it even but... ye know... you're not my dad


	4. chapter four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Night shifts, they're great.

Esther shouldn’t really be on her phone at work, but she a) is unsupervised, and b) doesn’t really care about this job. So when it rings, she picks up. Sasha is calling with a fifteen minute story about new drama happening at acting class, no pun intended. She feels bad about all of them forgetting Barry was a marine (a fact which Esther finds interesting) and making him upset by saying killing someone stains someone’s soul irreparably.

“We all know that was and murder are totally different things, that wasn’t at all what we meant, we all support the troops, ok? And we said that, so I don’t know why he still got so upset. Because if like, a general orders you to kill an enemy, it’s obviously different than when some lady does it. I mean I would never do it and I don’t think you can ever come back from it if you do, right?”

“Would you really?” Esther doesn’t normally argue with Sasha’s drama, but this somewhat within her area of expertise. Also she really doesn’t like moral absolutes. 

“Never? If you could have everything you’ve ever dreamed of in exchange for killing one person? And you’ve killed before, because you’re a soldier, and were praised for it? If the person you love and respect more than anyone else told you to do it, said that they would hate you and think you’re a coward if you don’t? You’re one hundred percent certain you wouldn’t? Sasha, lovingly, get fucked. You’re in a bubble of your own ass.” Esther rolls her eyes. Did she just tell Sasha she has a bubble butt? Nice word job, esteemed litterateur, you dumb fuck. Fortunately she’s saved by a customer walking in.

“You think I’m in a bubble?” Sasha sounds a little offended.

“I don’t know, Sasha, take a quiz. I’m at work.” Esther says, hanging up.

***

It’s almost eight hours later and Esther is walking around the store to check if anything needed re-stocking, struggling to stay awake, when someone grabs her arm and tosses her against a fridge. 

“Are you fucking following me?” The person whispers harshly, not letting go. It takes Esther a good couple of seconds before she recognises Barry, he looks so much unlike himself. He’s sporting a feral look and a fresh cut on the right temple. She opens her mouth, but no words come, so he shakes her. “What the fuck are you doing here?!” Now that is something she can answer.

“I work here.” Barry looks down at what is obviously a 7-eleven uniform, complete with a name tag, and all at once his face changes from terrifying to terrified. He lets go of her and takes a step backwards, bumping into the shelves behind him.

“Shit.” He doesn’t elaborate. Just looks at Esther with wide eyes.

She considers acting angry. It would certainly be appropriate, he did just physically attack her for no reason. But what’s she going to do, just yell at the man and throw him out? Who’s that going to help? 

“Yeah.” To Esther’s surprise, she sounds kind of angry. “Your head’s bleeding. I have a first-aid kit in the back room.” She makes a ‘stay’ gesture and goes to lock the doors to the shop. When she comes back Barry hasn’t moved. Good boy, she thinks, and leads him into the back room.

“Sit.” Esther indicates a beat-up couch. 

“I’m fine,” he says. Esther sends him a withering look, but he’s looking at the floor. With this new, angry-sounding and authoritative voice she feels like she’s role-playing a curt but competent nurse. Sometimes you have to get into a character just so you can deal with a situation. Even if all she can do is clean the cut up and steal a frozen bag of peas for him from her own place of work. She sits down on the armrest to get a good angle and tries to wipe away the blood and see where exactly it came from. Barry flinches slightly when the alcohol reaches the cut.

“I’m so sorry I scared you.” He looks really broken up.

“Honestly, I wouldn’t work night shifts at a 7-eleven if I wanted to live,” Esther tries to lessen the tension, but Barry’s not having it.

“Did I hurt you?” He’s so quiet and timid it’s annoying.

“Uh, no, I don’t think so.” It’s not exactly true. Her arm will definitely bruise and she can feel a dull ache where she hit her head on the fridge. Somehow she doesn’t want to add to Barry’s guilt. She does, however, want him to look at her instead of the floor and explain himself.

“I thought you worked at a coffee shop with Sasha?” Here it is again. He just fucking listens and remembers shit. It makes Esther want to open up and this is not the time. It is the time to stay on the topic.

“I do. Look it up, it’s called capitalism and it sucks. Barry, what the fuck was that?” At that his eyes finally snap to her face. She probably shouldn’t have let on that she remembered his name. Oh well.

“I’m really fucking sorry. It’s just these… rules.” He runs his hands over his face in frustration. “They’re called Moscow rules, for assessing randomly recurring events.”

“Moscow rules,” she repeats.

“Yeah, they’re like, if it happens once, it’s chance. If it happens twice, it’s coincidence, and…”

“And three times it’s a pattern. I know what the fucking Moscow rules are.”

“You do?” Esther doesn’t know which is worse. When he’s looking at the floor like a scolded puppy or when he’s looking right at her like this. It makes her stomach jump a little every time. Fortunately she’s done with his head and can move away from him. Lessen the impact of the eye-contact.

“Shut up.” He’s not getting her talking about herself again. Esther feels the anxiety that confrontations cause in her, but she can’t keep the store closed all night and slowly try to get Barry to open up. She’s needs to go all in and get ready to be told to fuck off. “You know you didn’t just attack me because of some spy bullshit. I know you had a stressful day. Sasha called me and told me what happened during rehearsal. I don’t know what happened afterwards, but it’s four fucking a.m. and you’re out on the town with a fucking bleeding head, terrorising cashiers at a 7 eleven.” She takes a deep breath. She’s such a condescending, patronising bitch, and she can’t even help it. “I think you should talk to someone.”

“You don’t have a fucking idea what you’re talking about.” Barry stands up, wanting to pace, but there isn’t enough space in the cramped back room. “Who should I talk to, you? I don’t even know your fucking name.” There it is, the defensiveness. Esther’s ready for it, it’s exactly what she expected. And it’s terrible.

“Yeah, I don’t. And I don’t want you to talk to me. Unless, um, you want to. Talk to a mental health professional, or someone who also got their brain fucked up by the military. Just get help.” The last part just sounds worried and soft, all of Esther’s anger has vanished from it. It only agitates Barry.

“I’m not some fucking head-case, ok!?” he yells. Esther flinches. Even if she doesn’t think he’s a violent person, he’s still a big dude. “I don’t need a psychiatrist, I need everyone to get off my dick!” He storms out of the room, and tries to storm out of the store, but the doors are locked. He jostles them a bit, swears.

“Can you open the fucking doors?” For a moment Esther doesn’t, just looks at him. She doesn’t want to let it go, make him feel like he’s burned a bridge.

“I work here three nights a week.” She says, fiddling with the keys. “You can talk to me, no consequences. I can just listen.” Even if he never accepts, she wants to have offered help. She unlocks the doors and Barry leaves without looking at her.

This time Esther’s not as sure that it’s the last time they meet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep changing the synopsis like it's going to hide the fact that this is unreadable lmao


	5. chapter five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The real pain of having a muse is when they're from a different genre.

Esther hasn’t seen Barry for five days. Didn’t even hear his name leave Sasha’s mouth once. Which, considering how things were going for a while, is a pretty long time. 

That doesn’t mean she’s not thinking about him. He’s on her mind all the time. Or, rather, a version of him. Barry’s unusual situation has given Esther the first real burst of inspiration since the week after she moved to LA. She would need eight hands to keep up with the onslaught of words spilling out of her. The characterisation, the back-story, emotional arcs. It’s like Barry hit Esther’s head on a fridge and knocked an entire person inside.

It’s nothing short of excruciating. It’s like she’s sixteen again and spitting out entire novels like a maniac. It’s no good. Yes, when she was sixteen she had tons of inspiration, but what she was inspired to write were space adventures, science fiction, alternate universe steam punk intergalactic odysseys. Unpolished, pulpy, and exciting. That’s the kind of hero Barry inspires, the…

“… regular, large iced macchiato, no whip?” Normally Esther can do her job without once dedicating it her full attention, but this verbal assault really demands full focus.

“Sorry, could you repeat that?”

“I could, but can you do your job this time?” This boho bitch wants a fight. There’s zero percent chance of Esther giving her one. She smiles pleasantly.

“Oh gosh, I really am sorry. I got distracted by your earrings, they’re gorgeous! Are they designer?” They might be, some people will pay for anything. The woman raises a hand to her ear, thrown by the sudden friendliness, but nevertheless flattered.

“Actually, I made them.”

“Really? That’s impressive. I wish I was creative like that.” Esther considers her appeased. “What can I get for you again?”

“Oh. A triple shot one shot decaf two shots regular, large, iced macchiato, no whip.”

“Great. That’ll be…” Esther lets the customer service part of her brain take care of the rest of that interaction and got back to her train of thought. 

… the kind of a story he demands. The soldier poet, a tortured man who only knows killing, yet dreams of performing. Someone who could reverse engineer himself from a war machine into an artist solely by observing, with no understanding of the language or the process, but with a burning passion. She could write him learning and un-learning and struggling to regain his humanity and then to lose it again in the inevitably dehumanising commercialised entertainment business and then regain it once more, whilst enacting change on the system and the people around him who used to teach him. 

But Esther’s an adult. She’s been made aware, and she’s been made ashamed of her immature writing reflexes. She knows that if she wants to write something that can resonate with everyday people, she needs to ground her stories in the everyday world. No magical crutches, fantastical scenarios forcibly pushing stories forward. However, she’s not good enough for that. Every time she tries to write within the confines of the mundane all she is left with is a… mundane piece of writing. 

“Hello, what can I help you with?” Soulless and boring. Just like her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mmm yes tasty OC inner monologue. you want barry? i said this was for me


	6. chapter six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry is trying to quit his job and dump Fuches and Esther has some insights about that dropping an abusive partner (romantic, in crime, it's all the same tricks)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know how I said I was trying to write more than just a bunch of talking? Well I failed. Enjoy.

“There’s a guy here asking about you” 

Esther’s blood freezes. It can’t be him. She spoke to some people from Cleveland and she knows he knows she’s in LA. But that’s all. No one knows where she works. She hasn’t told anyone. She changed all her passwords. She hasn't posted anything. It can’t be him. Shit, her heartbeat’s so loud.

“Who…” That wasn’t audible. “Who is he?” 

“It’s Barry? He says you know each other from Cleveland?” The relief’s like someone taking a boot off your chest. It’s not him. 

But then, it’s not exactly a friend either. It’s Barry. I Don’t Even Know Your Name Barry. Get Off My Dick Barry. Storm The Fuck Off Barry. Apparently it’s Take You Up On The Offer Barry now. It’s We Know Each Other From Cleveland Barry. The last one’s a stretch. 

“Can you put him on?” Esther will decide if she wants to be nice once she knows more about what happened to make him come looking for her. There is a shuffle on the line and then Barry’s voice.

“Hi.” It’s one word, but it’s already apparent that he’s distressed. It sounds like he’s been shouting. Or crying. Or both. All it took for Esther’s petty, vindictive annoyance to vanish was one syllable.

“Hi, Barry,” she says softly, not knowing what to say next. Barry speaks first.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you. You were helping me and I was an asshole in return.” He sounds more wrecked with every word, but speaks without hesitation, like he maybe rehearsed the speech in his head. He's going through a crisis and he’s still apologising. It’s heartbreaking. “You were right about me needing…” He sighs heavily. “Listen, can we talk? In person? I was kind of hoping… this isn’t even my phone.”

“Oh. Um, sure.”

***

Esther waits in front of her apartment complex. The tiny, crappy apartment she lives in is the first home she’s had in a while where she feels safe, so if Barry wants to murder her he can do it in his car. Just as she finishes that thought, he pulls up and Esther gets in without a second’s hesitation. Live dumb, die young, bucko.

They drive off without a word, Esther assuming that Barry has a destination in mind. He keeps looking straight ahead, but half of his face is more than enough to notice that he looks even worse than he sounded on the phone. His eyes are red and swollen, he’s pale, his hair’s a mess. His right hand is cut up like he’s punched something, but at least it seems clean.

“I’m gonna start again,” he says after a while. “I’m sorry, I was an assh…“

“Please don’t apologise to me when you look like a recent widow.” She shakes her head. Barry looks at her for a second, the pain in his eyes shooting right through Esther’s heart. “What happened?”

“It’s, uh." He pauses. "It’s a pretty fucked up story.” 

“Do you want to tell it?” He looks at her again, with searching eyes this time. Barry isn't much of a talker, but he can speak entire sentences with a single glance. _ Can I trust you? Did you mean it? Will you understand me?_

“Yeah,” he apparently decided. Still, he didn’t speak for a while, and Esther was just about to ask him again when he stopped the car. They were parked on a small hill overlooking just the neighbourhood, with a couple of bushes and one picnic table. A perfect place to talk if you want to later pretend that it never happened.

Barry gets out of the car without a word. Esther figures it might be best to just follow his lead, him clearly not being comfortable with sharing. They sit down at the table, opposite each other.

“So, uh, you know how I was in the marines?”, he finally starts, after taking a deep breath. So they were going way back with this story, huh. Esther nodded. “When I got back, I got pretty low. It’s like that, you don’t know what to do with yourself when you were used to having a clear purpose. It happens to a lot of soldiers. I wasn’t really functioning for a while, but then this guy. Uh, he’s more like family, an uncle, you know? He’s helped me before, and he got me a job. It gave me some sense of a purpose again…” Barry winces at his own words. He jerks himself upright and starts pacing. Messes up his hair even more.

“You know what? That’s all bullshit. Fuches, the guy, he saw a fucking opportunity and he took it. He gave me this shitty fucking job and I was happy because I got to be good at something again. It gave me a reason to get out of bed, but I never liked it. I wanted to stop for years, but I never had a good enough reason. Then Fuches send me to here to do a job even though I didn’t fucking want it, and when I found the acting class, complete fucking dumb-shit luck I felt like I could be good at something else. I know I’m not like, a natural, but we did a scene today and apparently I was good. Everyone said that. So maybe I can do something…” He stops to look at the view. It’s nothing spectacular, but Esther knows how looking into the distance can help stop the urge to run. This isn’t a trap, look at all this open space. ”Something other than…“ He shakes his head. What could be so bad that he can’t even say it? “I could be happy, you know? I can have a future here, but Fuches won’t fucking let this go. He followed me to LA, got me into deep shit. Real, people got hurt shit. And now I…” He stops, presses the heels of his hands to his face and lets out a long, shuddering breath. He sits back down, hunched and visibly tired. His eyes look wet and redder than before, but they’re looking straight at her. _I don’t know what to do._

Esther knows exactly what he should do. She also knows that of all she’s heard the only words relevant to this moment were _people got hurt_. And that they meant _someone I cared about got hurt because of me_. She takes one of Barry's slightly shaking hands. She can barely close two of her hands around it. His eyes drop down for a second, suprised at the touch.

“I know…" she starts slowly." I know what it’s like to feel like this. I could have been a writer in New York or Chicago, but I needed to... run away... farther. I ran as far as I could.” She looks down on where Barry’s put his other hand on top of hers in sympathy. “You need to get out.” His eyebrows draw together in confusion. “Not out of the city. Out of this… “ Relationship. “Partnership. If this is making you feel miserable, if it’s dangerous, you want to be done, you need to make it clear that it’s over. Not tomorrow, not after the next one. Now.”

They sit together, holding hands. His aren’t shaking anymore, they’re just rough and warm, thumbs drawing little circles into the backs of her palms. A soothing gesture that’s so casually intimate and caring and so unfamiliar to Esther that it makes her wary. It’s startling how it makes her want to tell him more. She’s already told him something she doesn’t ever admit to anyone. With all of her friends and family she maintains that LA was purely a career move.

“Okay.” Barry says quietly, pulling Esther out of her thoughts. “Now.”

***

They drive in silence, a thing that is becoming standard. Barry asked Esther to come as moral support, and without any further question she agreed. _People got hurt_. Whatever “job” Barry wants to get out of can’t be legal. She decides that she doesn't care, as long as she's not involved in it. Barry parks on the street next to a hotel. He turns off the engine, but doesn’t get out yet.

“Stay in the car.” Flat commands don’t sit well with Esther, but she lets it go.

“Are you… Is he dangerous?”

“Not really.” Barry looks extremely nervous, fiddling with the keys.

“I can go with you.” He shakes his head.

“Just, what do I say?” Esther doesn’t really know. She didn’t say shit at the end, she just ran.

“Make it clear that you’re… done with it. With him. You can do it.” He nods his head several times and finally steps out of the car. Esther watches him go when she realises what the real advice is here. She rolls down the window.

“Barry!” He turns, his jaw set and eyes determined. “Don’t let him talk.”

***

“I wanted to look at the sea,” he says. After Barry returned to the car, not ten minutes after he left, and just drove off. Esther didn’t want to pressure him with questions, since he was obviously agitated. Observing Barry’s body language was starting to feel like a skill, like learning to read an animal. His fingers clutching the wheel, face scrunched up, leg bouncing. It was best to let him start speaking.

They ended up sitting on cold, wet sand, daylight rising around them with the fog, softening the sound of crashing waves.

“I get it. It’s nice,” Esther responds quietly. “Your hand is bleeding again,” she adds as a way to breach the subject of his confrontation with Fuches.

“Yeah, I punched him. Can we not talk about it? It’s done.”

“Okay.” He sighs.

“I’m sorry. There’s nothing to talk about. I did it. It’s done. How about intead you… uh, tell me what you’re writing? Oh, I didn’t even think about that, but I hope I didn’t ruin any plans you had tonight?” He's desperate to change the subject.

“Barry, the sweatpants I am wearing have holes in them.”

“I don’t mean a party, but weren’t you writing? It can’t be easy to find time with two jobs.” The answer to that was… humiliating. But since she’s already told him one secret today, might as well do another.

“I wasn’t not writing, I guess. I was staring at twenty pages of absolute dog shit I spend a month writing. Trying to force myself to write more of it. It’s a fucking blessing you called me away from it.”

“What? Why’s it shit?”

“It… I… I hate writing it. I want to write something real, but all I can write is dumb sci-fi novels or fucking space drama. I don’t ene know what to write otherwise. A psychological thriller set in the DMV? Deep introspection into the social structures of a used car dealership?”

“What’s wrong with space drama?” Barry asks, completely earnersty.

“Nothing,” she shakes her head, all of the sudden confused. “It’s just…”

“Mr Cousineau says that just because there’s magic, it doesn’t mean there aren’t real emotions in it. So you could write a space drama that’s… real, right?” Esther just starts laughing at how simple it is to Barry. He really doesn’t have a pretentious bone in his giant action-man body. She imagines him stuffed into a turtleneck, sneering at a novel for “using supernatural elements as a crutch for those with a weak grasp of the human condition” and her laughter turns hysterical. When she finally stops there are tears in her eyes and she needs to pee.

“You done?” Barry looks slightly offended, and more than slightly confused.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t laughing at you,” she grins. Her body feels light and she stands up with a slight bounce. “That was actually really fucking amazing advice. I would love to hear more of it, but I gotta hit one of those porta potties.”

***

When she’s steps out, having spent a hot minute figuring out the fancy LA Water Included portable toilets, she finds that Barry is in the car and has already pulled up next to the row of hells blue cuboids. He waves for her to get in and she does, surprised by his sudden urge to leave.

“I’ll drop you off.” He’s serious and grim again, instead of serious and contemplative like he was sitting on the beach ten minutes ago. It’s a subtle change, easy to spot if you’re trained in recognising moods.

“What happened?”

She asks.

“Nothing happened, it’s just late.” The leg is bouncing again.

“Barry, you’re such a terrible fucking liar.” He glances at her.

“He’s in trouble.” Fuches. A classic move.

“You can’t go save him.”

“I have to.” He pauses. “He’s my only family.”

“Barry, it’s a fucking cliché. You cut someone off, they go and get in trouble so you have to help.”

“Yeah? You done all of that too?” There is that defensiveness again.

“A dozen times.” Crying, threats, pictures of lighter fluid, pills, razors, it gets old. “If he got in trouble it’s his fucking probl...”

“I won’t let him get killed!!” He screams, and Esther feels her blood freezing for a second time in a day. This time it’s not dread.

“Don’t fucking yell at me.” Her voice is ice. Barry stares at her in shock for a couple of seconds, eyes completely off the road. The change in her tone was more startling than his change in volume. Finally he looks back at the road.

“Sorry.” It’s barely audible. “I have to do this.”

Esther takes a moment to get rid of the venom that's threatening to spill off her tongue. “I get it. But it’s only going to make it harder,” she finally says. They don’t speak again.

She gets out of the car on the same corner he picked her up at. Once he’s out of sight, the only evidence left of the entire night is the sand in Esther’s shoes. She checks the time. It’s 5:39, she has to be at work in an hour and fifty one minutes.


	7. chapter seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Esther doesn't have to wait long to hear from Barry again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I haven't updated I've been to Russia.

The morning storm of customers passed, so Esther and Sasha have some time to talk while cleaning up. But after the night she’s had, there is no way Esther can focus on whatever it is that Sasha is complaining about. Something about another in a long line of sketchy auditions that had no chance of going anywhere farther than the casting director’s pants. Sasha never really minds that Esther isn’t listening, as long as she’s nodding her head and making affirmative noises. Normally Esther enjoys listening to Sasha, not because her stories were particularly interesting or unique, but because she has a type of childlike enthusiasm and relentless positivity connected to acting that Esther really envies and admires.

Right now, though, her head is too full to even focus on one train of thought, much less listen to someone else. She skips from thinking about Barry’s relationship with his boss slash uncle, to her past relationship with Luke, to the space fantasy novel idea that she’s beginning to think is something worth exploring despite the genre being less than prestigious, and how she can maybe use it to give herself a feeling of closure, then back to Barry, to wondering how rescuing Fuches went and whether he got closure, then about the cycle of manipulative abuse and how closure is near impossible to get even if you get out, then back to how she can use this cycle to further plot.

Sasha snaps her fingers if front of Esther’s face.

“Christ, it’s like you’re in a trance.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, exactly,” Sasha laughs a little. She’s looking at Esther curiously. “I didn’t know you and Barry knew each other.”

“What?” Was she somehow thinking out loud? No way, right?

“He just texted me, asking if I could give him your number.”

“Oh.” They only parted ways a couple of hours ago. If Barry was trying to contact her, it could mean Fuches got to him and he wants to cut ties. Or maybe he got rid of him and wants to share the good news. Or something bad happened to either of them and he needs help. Or…

“Hey! What’s up with you today? Is that all you have to say about that?” Sasha’s curious look has turned worried. “Should I tell him to fuck off and leave you alone?” Despite all her flaws, she’s a pretty good friend, especially when it comes to problems she can relate to, i.e. creepy guys.

“No,” Esther shakes her head with a reassuring smile, still nervous on the inside, “it’s fine, give it to him. We, well, we kind of knew each other in Cleveland and ran into each other at that party you took me to.” That’s true enough.

“And he’s only asking for your number now? He’s so fucking weird…” Sasha sighs into her phone. Esther’s saved from answering any other questions by customers.

***

The next chance Esther gets to check her phone is during the fifteen minute lunch break, while munching on a soggy sandwich. She has three texts from an unknown number.

“I dumped Fuches at the airport. He’s gone for good.”

“Thanks for the advice, I think I would’ve let him talk me around without it.”

“This is Barry.”

Esther feels relief wash over her. He’s not mad. Nothing is wrong, it’s the best case scenario. She’s a little sceptical about Fuches being gone for good, but it’s not like voicing that right now would be productive. 

‘Hi. Glad I helped. Good job not letting him suck you back in.’ No, that’s too… patronising.

‘Hi, I’m happy you managed to get rid of him.’ Worse, somehow.

‘Hi, I’m glad for you.’ Perfectly neutral, no flair. Clearly the work of an artist. She sighs. How’s she going to be an author when she can’t write a text.

“Your advice was great too. I can’t wait to write my space nonsense, tysm” There is no way he knows what tysm means. She changes it to say the entire thing and hits send.

Her phone buzzes again not five minutes later.

“What’s it about?”

“The space nonsense.” 

Esther’s a little embarrassed to be writing something so clearly inspired by Barry. She tries and fails for a couple of minutes to draft a pitch for Barry before she gets yet another message.

“It’s probably too much to say over text?” That’s not it, but also, yeah.

“Do you want to get coffee sometime and tell me?”

She stares at the text. Coffee. A completely innocent invitation. Texting Do you want to get coffee sometime is so much less loaded than brokenly asking over a borrowed phone Can we talk?, but for Esther the implications of the former are much more terrifying. Or is she getting ahead of herself? She can feel the whooshing of blood in her ears. It’s probably just, it’s most likely, surely just a friendly invitation. There is no need to think too much about this. There is no need to try to decipher her own feelings. There is no need to spiral. Esther’s phone buzzes to signal that her break is over. She quickly sends a response and heads back to work.

“Sure. How about Saturday?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Texting?! My whole random meetings plan went out of the window!


End file.
